Best sound experienced.....

.........at a movie theater ? Pick up to 3.

1-Gladiator (and it actually WAS awarded an oscar in that dept.)

2-Black Hawk Down

3-Starship Troopers

 

I was blown away by Kubrick's 2001 in 1968 at the Tampa Palace Cinerama theater. I think that might have been the first time I really noticed film sound. The 6-track 70mm mix of Star Wars was excellent back in the day. I was also there for the first digital-sound release of Fantasia in the 1980s, but thought that was merely "eh." I had the same reaction for the all-digital Dick Tracy a few years later.

The Dolby Atmos mix of The Hobbit was fantastic. And I really, really loved the mix of Return of the King, which was the first time I ever turned around to see what bird was flying by my left shoulder.

The old-school mono mixes of The Exorcist and Jaws were fantastic for their time. The analogue Dolby Surround mixes for Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and Jurassic Park were really thrilling and I think still hold up very well.

I hated the dialogue mix on Interstellar, but I gotta say the low-frequency oomph of that movie was the first time in years that I felt like I was hearing an actual Saturn V rocket take off. I heard them several times in Florida at Cape Canaveral in the early 1970s, and that's an experience that's very hard to duplicate. For sheer impact, that's a huge film... but the dialogue unintelligibility bugged the hell out of me.

And the mix on Gravity and also Inception were dynamite. I think to move away from giant, explosive films for a moment, there are also films out there with amazing subtleties and nuances that are important to appreciate. Just for the degree of difficulty alone, I was knocked out by the mix on Les Miserables, simply because it's damn near impossible to have actors sing live on a set -- period. And I was impressed with the sound on Social Network as well as The Aviator -- both radically different period films that sounded great. The mixes on Nixon and JFK are also exceptionally good.

Note that most of these won or were nominated for Oscars for Best Sound:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Sound

 

For some unknown reason, I remember the sound of the VHS tape of 'The Neverending Story' I rented having a really nice soundstage.

jerol

 

Remeber Sensarround ? When the theaters strategically located a lot of big subwoofers like on the movies Battlestar Gallactica and Earthquake in the 80s ?

 

just three? uhm let's see..

Amadeus: probably the first live action movie I saw at the theater; I was blown away mainly by the sound of the orchestra playing the various Mozart compositions.

Indiana Jones - The last crusade: John Williams's score, the dialogue and the sound effects; eg guns, cars, trains, whip: all masterfully rendered... one of the reasons why real theater is way better than home theater.

The Incredibles: best Pixar movie imho and an awesome display of technical excellence including of course the..ahem..incredible sound effects

 

1. Star Trek-The Motion Picture. saw it in Houston as 70-MM blow up with 6-track Dolby Stereo
2. The Fugitive - first movie I ever saw in Dolby Digital. The bus/train crash sequence alone worth the price of admission
3. Superman-The Movie. first movie I ever heard in Dolby Stereo.

 

I do remember, and it paled next to Interstellar's ass-kicking sound.

 

I almost added that to my list -- one of the best-sounding animated films in history. Terrific music, perfect voice casting, and unbelievably good effects... also well-deserving of an Oscar.

 

The Hurt Locker.

I saw it at AMC's Main Street theater which was, at the time, their technology showcase - the first one with 4k projection and 11 channel sound. And it also had bass shakers under every single seat.

I walked out of that film just stunned, feeling something akin to battle fatigue, and wished everyone had been able to see the film like I did.

 

It did! Good memory.

 

I remember being blown away by the swooshing sound from front to back when watching the Superman titles! Those were great times, when amazing sound was relatively new and we could be so easiky impressed. I do expect good sound for event films these days. And I remember getting my first primitive Dolby home decoder....wow, that was neat.

 

I remember seeing "Star Wars" at Loew's Astor Plaza in NYC. It was one of the only times I left the theater with a headache due to the volume of the sound...Damn, it was loud !

 

Blue Thunder. First film I ever saw in surround and it blew my 13-year old mind.

 

Apocalypse Now. Another well-deserved Academy Award winner for best sound. I saw the film at the University Theatre in Toronto during its original 70MM run. I also still have the programme book they handed out since the film itself had no credits.

 

Where was the Tampa Palace Cinerama theater? I'm curious what modern monstrosity exists in this location currently.

 

1. Recently: Gravity
2. Memory: The Empire Strikes Back in 1981, six-track 70mm analogue Dolby Stereo, in a converted Cinerama theater in Des Moines, IA. The first 15 mins of that movie, on the planet Hoth, swirling snow, John Williams score, Ben Burtt's sound design.
2. Memory (tie for 2nd!): Ferris Bueller's Day Off, six-track 70mm analogue Dolby Stereo (same theater, no longer exists)
3. Totality: The Elephant Man. Headphones, mid-90's. Alan Splet's sound design.

 

My roommate's 4-ch Dolby Surround system was on in the 1990's as I was flipping channels.
Landed on A Cry in the Dark, the one where the dingo ate the baby.
Meryl Streep in a quiet courtroom scene, with the most vivid and dramatic "quiet room" ambiance I've ever heard.
Made my hair stand on end.

 

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, opening day at the Egyptian, Hollywood.

 

I recall being really impressed by the sound of "Altered States" in 1980

 

Knocked down circa 1978...

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/17395

I saw many big Cinerama and 65mm roadshow movies there, including How the West Was Won, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, My Fair Lady, Grand Prix, Dr. Zhivago, 2001... quite a spectacular theater with great sound for that era. It all kind of fell apart around 1972 or so, and much of the downtown area kinda got very rundown. They've tried to restore a lot of it and make it more upscale, but it's only a fraction of what it was in the 1930s and 1940s.

 

The writeup from Cinema Treasures is quite interesting. I'm sure many of my friends will be surprised to hear that another major theater existed for many years just a block away from the Tampa. From your description, I certainly didn't think it would be right downtown. To my original comment about what "modern monstrosity" exists there now - it's a condo high-rise, with an upscale pizza restaurant filling in retail space right at the corner of Tampa and Zack.

As to the topic at hand, the multiplex was on the rise as I was born, so by the time I became an avid moviegoer, multiplexes and strip mall theaters were all I had access to, most without decent quality sound. The largest screen at DeSoto Square in Bradenton did have quality sound, however, and I firmly recall the moment I discovered surround sound - an off-screen gunshot in "Harry and the Hendersons" rang from the back of that auditorium. As I graduated high school, digital sound was on the way in, and as I headed to Orlando for college, I found most of the multiplexes featured the latest technology. The preview screening of "Jurassic Park" in DTS that I was invited to attend is probably going to stick in my mind more than any other sound experience, just because of the newness and quality of the technology. This was also at a Tampa theater that no longer exists, the Hillsboro 8, which closed in... 2001.

 

I agree that 'Starship Troopers' has great sound, it was one of the first DVDs I ever bought when the format was pretty new. Another of those early great sounding surround mixes was Stallone's 'Demolition Man'

 

There was a time when I chased every new movie technology advance - CINERAMA, SENSURROUND, SUPER PANAVISION 70, didn't miss a one - travelled to the best theaters to ensure the full experience - and yet, I cannot name three movies, because in the end it was the movie that made the experience and many of these technologies proved to be distractions or didn't really add to the overall experience.

 

Two that I recall blowing me away on my surround sound sytem were "The Patriot" & "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

 

When I was in the home theater hifi biz, I was always impressed with Dolby Spectral Recording movies. Predator 2 was an awful movie with an amazing soundtrack.